Capoeira News Online

YouTube channel Raridades da Capoeira recently shared Vadiação, a short but fascinating documentary of capoeira produced in 1954 in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. The film’s opening credits mention (in Portuguese) “director A. Robatto Filho”, “berimbaus and singers of Mestre Bimba”, “game players of Mestre Valdemar”, and the names Caribé, Paulo Jatobá, Manoel Ribeiro, and Silvio Robatto as “collaborators”.

More information has come to light about Mestre Gigante and his recent death on Monday, May 30, 2016, at the age of 95.

As reported by AfricaNews.com. Safe to say this is a first for capoeira:

The flame was also welcomed by a group performing capoeira, a mix between martial-arts and dance created by Afro-Brazilians during the time of slavery, and named a UNESCO cultural heritage in 2014.

Quality footage of capoeira pre-YouTube can be hard to come by. Here’s a German clip that just popped up on the aforementioned site that shows Mestre João Grande, Mestre Pequeno, and Mestre Boneco in Salvador in 1989. If you do not speak German (like me), take advantage of YouTube’s subtitle auto-translation for a little more insight!